LONDON - Following a festive break, London's stock market activity is expected to be very thin amid an absence of economic data and company news.
The FTSE 100 index of leading shares ended Friday at 6190 points, down 70 points, or 1.12 per cent, from a week earlier.
A week ago, the FTSE had closed at 6260 points - the highest level since February 6, 2001.
The FTSE has fallen in recent days amid falls on Wall Street and in Asia.
Asian share prices were rocked last week by the biggest drop in more than 30 years on the Thai stock market. It came after Thailand's central bank imposed draconian measures in an effort to halt the rise of the baht against the US dollar.
The past week meanwhile saw the London Stock Exchange describe a hostile takeover bid by US stock exchange operator Nasdaq as "wholly inadequate" and called on its shareholders to reject the offer worth £2.9 billion ($8.1 billion).
Nasdaq has set LSE shareholders a deadline of January 11 to accept.
Meanwhile Anglo-Dutch steel group Corus is at the centre of another unresolved takeover battle.
Britain's Takeover Panel last week set India's Tata Steel and Brazilian rival CSN a deadline of January 30 to announce revised offers for Corus.
Corus accepted bids from both Tata and CSN - the Brazilian steelmaker offered about £5.8 billion just a few hours after Tata tabled an offer of about £5.6 billion.
- AFP
